Since I last wrote anything I have had a pretty big case of Painters block but I have played quite a few games of Team Yankee, Saga: Age of Magic, The Walking Dead: All out War and Gaslands.
When I was having some discussion with Ed about my lack of painting motivation -- I had some SPQR Romans and Saga: Age of Magic Undead on the painting table but they really weren't getting anywhere -- and I decided largely out of nowhere I would paint a dragon. I did some searching for figures and I came across both the Wizkid Nolzur's line and the Realmsmith.tv tutorial videos. I ordered the Young Blue Dragon and picked up the colours I didn't have at the Hobby Centre.
I was surprised by both the price and the quality of the Blue Dragon. It cost less than dragon miniatures did decades ago when I was last buying fantasy figures. It might no be as detailed as a really good metal mini but it is still very good -- I think the detail on this softish plastic is better (or at least different) than on more traditional hard plastic. The light weight of plastic is nice in a model that is flying.
The Realmsmith tutorial was also very good. It is an archive of a livestream and probably could be better with some editing but that would be a lot of work. The techniques were mostly ones I had used before but it was somewhat therapeutic to have someone tell me what to do and just paint along without giving it much thought.
I enjoyed the process so much that I ordered the Brass Dragon as soon as I finished.
By then I developed a dragon addiction and ordered the other 5 young dragons that were available (Bronze, Copper, White, Green and Black). I think the Red and Gold are available now and I will probably get them in the near future.
I had a justification (if one is needed) in that I could use them as the Morrow Island warband for the Horde Faction.
Once they were all painted, I did just that and fielded them (and a Chimera I had painted years ago to have 8 monsters) in a battle against Mike
I have since painted a Frost Giant and
As well as a Night Hag, Green Hag and a Bullette which were fun to paint but have less immediate use.
Finally a Kraken which I have plans to use as particularly hazardous terrain in a Saga: Age of Magic game and by the time my Black Seas ships arrived from Warlord games I was back in my painting groove.
I have a few other unpainted giants and odds and ends that Realmsmith has tutorials for so I will have them in case I run into painters block again (and I think ultimately I will want to get some monsters that count as Behemoths for Saga: Age of Magic.
As another note, this was the first time that I had used the Vallejo Game Color and I noticed that they were different than the Model Color and Model Air that I was used to (and I liked it better to be honest). I did a bit of digging and the different lines are slightly different in terms of composition (as well as colour, obviously) so it is probably worth trying all the ranges and seeing what you like best.
Assuming that I remain cooped up, expect a posting about Black Seas in the not too distant future.
